NEW REPORT REVEALS UK MUST ACHIEVE NET ZERO BY 2050 TO REDUCE NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

A habitable, stable climate alongside well-functioning natural systems is the foundation for a livable future.

According to experts, government plans to tackle the climate crisis are wholly inadequate if warming is to be limited to the agreed global 1.5 degrees target.

However, to meet the 1.5 degrees target, net zero must be achieved by 2050 and changes to our food systems from farm to fork are essential to this transition.

Although red meat consumption has been highlighted as a strong contributor to CO2 emissions previously, shockingly, eating poultry, pork and dairy regularly can also have dangerous impacts on the environment. In fact, 45 per cent of CO2 emissions is attributed to livestock productions that come from animal feed.

Eating a plant-based diet has already been established as making a positive impact on the environment, but the new report suggests that adopting a sustainable diet instead is the leading way for the UK to reduce its carbon footprint. This not only means reducing our meat and dairy consumption but moving away from consuming processed plant-based or meat-free alternatives.

Whole plant-based foods are the cornerstone of a sustainable diet. This means eating more pulses, lentils, beans and vegetables and significantly reducing the regular consumption of meat and dairy.

Additionally. the study revealed that whole foods are better from an environmental and health perspective than the ultra-processed plant-based meat alternatives. For example, the footprint of a leading plant-based burger brand is 3.5 kg CO2 eq, which is three times that of lentils (1.02kg).

The research conducted by environmental scientist, Duncan Williamson, on behalf of Merchant Gourmet, show switching to a sustainable diet has a far greater impact than those who consider food miles, shop locally and focus on packaging when it comes to food. It also reveals that these popular measures consumers take to reduce their impact on the environment are much less effective.

Therefore, a switch towards a more plant-based and sustainable diet will reduce the demand for land, which will benefit biodiversity, forests and mitigate climate change. And the findings suggest that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet, we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75 per cent.

Duncan Williamson comments: “There is so much advice from the media to influencers on the best ways you can reduce your impact on the environment. Everything from eating a plant-based diet, to ensuring you are buying local produce in your supermarket.

“However, from the conclusions in this new report, the first important step to reducing your carbon footprint is considering the ingredients you are selecting and where they are from.

“Foods such as lentils and pulses have been around for centuries and are a key ingredient that can help reduce carbon emissions. This is the time and opportunity to start giving them a bigger role in our diet.”

In reality, if Brits simply swapped one red meat-based meal to a plant-based meal each week in 2022, the UK’s GHGS would be cut by 50 million tonnes, based on the calculations by Poore and Nemecek.

The calculation is the same as taking 16 million cars off the road or, according to the World Land Trust’s carbon calculator, 7,575,757 average round trips from London Heathrow to Sydney Australia.

This change would also reduce the UK’s water use by 2 per cent and 23 per cent reduction in land use, or 8 million hectares.

Ingredients like lentils are not only significantly better for the environment, they contain an array of nutrients that are often missing from consumers diets such as fibre and protein.

Lentils are more sustainable than many other plant crops as they act as a carbon sink and trap carbon in the soil, plus their plant residue helps the soil to trap water, requiring minimal water in the growing process and no carbon being released into the air through their growth.

Lentils, which are readily available in supermarkets from Merchant Gourmet, are an excellent example of a staple, affordable food, that sustainable diets can be built upon.